Crackpots

The Daily Beast reports: Comedian Roseanne Barr stepped off the deep end by connecting the [drone] sightings to a conspiracy championed by Infowars founder Alex Jones called “Project Blue Beam.” The decades-old conspiracy posits that the government will stage a fake alien invasion as a way to create mass panic and institute authoritarian controls over society. Jones and others have …

The Hill reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be seeking to ease any skepticism over his confirmation this week as he begins meetings with Senate Republicans over his nomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). While Kennedy was considered one of the most controversial choices initially, there has been little public criticism from Senate Republicans. GOP …

The Washington Post reports: The world’s most respected infectious-disease agency needed a new leader. Anti-vaccine activists knew just the man: Dave Weldon, a Florida physician and former seven-term Republican congressman who had for years expressed concerns about the safety of vaccines. A Washington Post review of Weldon’s public comments, media appearances and congressional letters along with accounts of those who …

NBC News reports: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a polio survivor, responded critically to a report in The New York Times that a key lawyer and longtime advisor to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to revoke the approval of the polio vaccine. McConnell, who still deals with the effects of his battle with …

“I’m going to call it total bullshit that no one knows what these are. They can track down a guy that just killed a CEO, but they can’t identify what these nightly drones are and where they’re coming from. I think the Pentagon absolutely knows, but they’re full of crap. “Secondly, if they’re telling the truth, then this country is …

Florida Politics reports: Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo continues to speak out against fluoride in the water supply, saying it’s “clearly something that was far riskier than how it was presented” by advocates of the practice. “It really is insane to keep on doing it,” Ladapo said. “You just can’t justify it.” During a recent interview on the CR Podcast with …

Axios reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes the CIA had a role in assassinating his uncle, President John F. Kennedy — part of RFK Jr.’s motivation for pushing his daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, for deputy CIA director, Axios has learned. President-elect Trump feels indebted to RFK Jr., his pick for secretary of Health and Human Services, for his help in …

The Daily Beast reports: A cavalcade of supporting characters in the MAGA universe, and President-elect Donald Trump, showed up at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday to attend a soirée for the conspiratorial, QAnon-adjacent conservative non-profit America’s Future. Mel Gibson, the traditionalist Catholic actor/director, told the crowd, “I got nine kids, if one of them got stolen or trafficked, I’d have to kill …

NOTUS reports: Do cell phones and 5G cause cancer? It’s a question that has plagued Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and if Kennedy is confirmed as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, it’s one he will have power to explore. “The next-generation telecommunications network should be discontinued until it has been ‘sufficiently demonstrated that there are no …

Raw Story reports: New reporting flagged what it called an “unusual” application to work for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in which applicants are asked a slew of bizarre questions, including a pattern completion test and even whether they have an interest in having “sexual experiences with another person.” Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump transition team, confirmed to Puck …

“Chaos has broken out in France. Another French government has now fallen after the National Assembly approved a no confidence vote. And this is not a giant shock. The French National Assembly has been split among a wide variety of parties for a while now. “Emmanuel Macron’s party — he’s the president of France — the prime minister, his role …

The New York Times reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is in line to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in the next Trump administration, is well-known for promoting conspiracy theories and vaccine skepticism in the United States. But Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has also spent years working abroad to undermine policies that have been pillars of …

The Hill reports: Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the FDA during President-elect Trump’s first term, expressed concerns with his pick of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Humans Services due to his anti-vaccine advocacy. “I think if RFK follows through on his intentions, and I believe he will, and I believe he can, it …

From a Washington Post op-ed: It is certainly possible that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be Health and Human Services secretary, will move to restrict vaccine access. A likely first target is the coronavirus vaccine. Kennedy could instruct the CDC to remove the shot from its recommended list of vaccines, which would mean insurers no longer …

NBC News reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a dark view of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2019, he called the federal agency’s vaccine division a fascist enterprise and accused it of knowingly hurting children. He also compared what he saw as a widespread conspiracy to hide harms from the child vaccination program to the cover-up of …

The Hill reports: President-elect Trump’s choice for deputy secretary of Health and Human Services is Jim O’Neill, an investor and historically close associate of billionaire Peter Thiel, the president-elect said Tuesday. O’Neill has also held roles as managing director at Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management and principal associate deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services during former President …

“Wicked – the movie – broke box office records. I saw it, but I was very excited at the idea of seeing the interpretation of this. But I should have known it’s Holly-weird. “Let’s just start with the fact that they have Ariana Grande, who is obviously a Hispanic woman, playing the part of a ditzy, blonde, white villain, when …

The New York Times reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday evening that he had selected Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and economist whose authorship of an anti-lockdown treatise during the coronavirus pandemic made him a central figure in a bitter public health debate, to be the director of the National Institutes of Health. If confirmed by the …

Politico reports: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is enlisting associates with close ties to anti-vaccine organizations to help vet and interview candidates for senior roles at the Department of Health and Human Services, even as he publicly seeks to distance himself from the movement he once led. At least three informal advisers connected to the anti-vaccine movement are assisting Kennedy in …

Mediate reports: Elon Musk hinted he might explore buying MSNBC on Friday, days after it was reported the network would be spun off from NBC News and potentially sold by Comcast. Donald Trump Jr. shared a meme on Friday afternoon on X/Twitter claiming MSNBC was up for sale. He tagged Musk and commented, “Hey @elonmusk I have the funniest idea …